Damaged File / Save Corruption Bug

[PALFox]

Not seen anyone else post about this yet.

I played yesterday for a couple of hours, saving when I arrived on the laser bridge before the Harrier fight.
After I saved, I alt-tabbed and closed the application, and when I came back, my save wouldn't load. On the load screen it says "Damaged File" and it can't be selected.

Started a new game today, this time rotating my saves as I went. Finished the Harrier fight and saved when prompted by Rose. Switched off and came back to the same issue. The last save is damaged and can't be loaded, but the others leading up to it are fine.

No idea why this is happening, but curious to know if anyone else has experienced it.

[Prometheuz]

I seem to have lost all my vr mission progress. No message about corruption, its just gone.

[Detective Sadist]

I started my game just now and my last save, just before the Olga fight, is now damaged and can't be loaded.

[k9]

Yup. same thing justh appened to me. Kind of dont wanna start a new game until at least some form of a patch

[Frei]

I saved right before arsenal gear and my file was damaged when I tried to load game a few hours later

[future murder victim]

i was almost halfway done getting all the dog tags before my save just decided to ♥♥♥♥ the bed, feels bad. what's weird is that i backed up my save file, but the game refuses to load it. it's like it's automatically corrupting itself

[k9]

Originally posted by Video Kojimbo:

i was almost halfway done getting all the dog tags before my save just decided to ♥♥♥♥ the bed, feels bad. what's weird is that i backed up my save file, but the game refuses to load it. it's like it's automatically corrupting itself

im sorry to hear that. this needs to be patched.

[Pugs]

I did some testing to try and enable cloud saves for MGS2 and 3 using 3rd party software (it's not going well) and got a corrupted MGS2 save during testing. I noticed that sometimes when you save, it produces an extra file in ...common\MGS2\mgs2_savedata_win\. I was able to delete the newer file, which caused me to lose progress but retain my older save.

The more I play with this Master Collection, the more I am baffled at how many basic things they got wrong or just don't work. I genuinely think that unless modders or patches fix these issues, the emulated versions will be my go to versions, forever. It's insane.

[dqwn]

Just happened to me at the same exact point. Right after the harrier fight I saved a quit. Opened back up to a damaged file

[Ahroovi]

I think my corrupted save happened right on that bridge as well, or at least on the sediment pool area. I am only keeping one save, since that's what I've done in the OG games... Luckily before I continued on, I saved again.

The save that was corrupted was BEFORE I got to the bridge, across the entire shell 1. But when I went to save there it showed the file as damaged. I do long play sessions so luckily I have plenty of chances to double check what's going on. Definitely gonna start saving, then go back to the save menu to be sure before I quit out. Doesn't seem related to alt tab or alt F4 quitting for me, or game crashing. I had the game freeze my whole system and the existing saves were fine. No corrupted saves since then.

[Roland]

Originally posted by Pugs:

Originally posted by Pugs:

You might be right...I was able to create a new save file and bounce between the Deck and PC several times with no issue. But my 0 file is corrupted. Does anyone know how to clear cloud saves and start fresh? I tried unchecking cloud saves, deleting all the contents in D:\SteamLibrary\steamapps\common\MGS2\mgs2_savedata_win, but the cloud save keeps the old saves.

Going to reply to myself as I have figured this out.

The cloud save system is bugged if you have a corrupt file in your game. I will explain how to correct both. Please read carefully, it's very detailed:

Go to your ...\steamapps\common\MGS2\mgs2_savedata_win\#############\ folder and you will see at the very least, a folder called: STE131640000G000. That is the games (000) save. STE131640000G001 is (001) save file, so forth, and so on. In the folder (whichever save is corrupted), you will see at least one scrambled up file name (it seems random every time) and a STE131640000G000 file (or STE131640000G001, etc.). If you have three files in this folder, your file is corrupt, guaranteed. You need to retain (aka do not delete) the STE131640000G000 (or 001, 002, etc.) file, and figure out which of the scrambled up file names you'd like to keep - I went with the earliest copy and deleted the more recent file that corrupted the save.

If you have cloud saves on and there are more than two files in the STE131640000G000 folder (or 001, 002, etc.), Steam will download ALL of the files to any other device you use, thus corrupting your save file right out of the gate. To fix this...

Turn Cloud Saves on (or leave it on) and let all the saves upload
LAUNCH THE GAME
Alt + Tab out and go to:

\steamapps\common\MGS2\mgs2_savedata_win\#############\STE131640000G000, (or STE131640000G001, STE131640000G002, etc.) and delete that third file (aka the second scrambled file name) to fix the save. Close the game, and let the cloud correct itself.

Konami, get your mother ******* **** together, I am sick and tired of troubleshooting.

[Roland]

Also I have a question for everyone in this thread:

Is anyone running the game off an HDD?

[Luna ~]

see the problem with that is cloud saves were only just enabled today
Enabled 10 hours ago even.
and when it was even in the idea of being added Added hidecloudui: 1
Added ignoreexternalfiles: 1 were added meaning nothing could even been uploaded to steam cloud and it didnt function.
Meaning every post older than 10 hours has the problem via other means

https://steamdb.info/app/2131640/history/

[Roland]

Originally posted by Lulu:

see the problem with that is cloud saves were only just enabled today
Enabled 10 hours ago even.
and when it was even in the idea of being added Added hidecloudui: 1
Added ignoreexternalfiles: 1 were added meaning nothing could even been uploaded to steam cloud and it didnt function.
Meaning every post older than 10 hours has the problem via other means

https://steamdb.info/app/2131640/history/

This thread isn't about cloud saves, it's about corrupted saves.

[Ahroovi]

Originally posted by Roland:

Also I have a question for everyone in this thread:

Is anyone running the game off an HDD?

SSD for me. I did debate running off an HDD considering the original game's performance and release consoles. But I had the space.

And yeah I didn't even know cloud saves were turned on. I always just assume games on Steam have them by default. My issue happened two days ago though, so there goes the cloud save idea.

[Kyo Tanaka]

I play on an SSD in all versions. I've yet to experience corrupted save in 2, but that's the game I spent on the least so far. I really wanna play in chronological order outside of troubleshooting issues